Toyota FT-1 goes gray at Pebble and full-race in Gran Turismo

Graphite paint for Monterey, race-spec bodywork for Gran Turismo.

This is a really smart play. The lurid red of the FT-1 concept we saw at the Detroit show in January was arresting, almost erotic. You couldn't stop looking at it. To paraphrase the famous line, "I can't define automotive pornography, but I know it when I see it." For the Pebble Beach crowd, Toyota covered up the FT-1 in a more modest graphite, and filled the interior with the sort of saddle leather that naturally soothes and relaxes the well-to-do.

Somehow, even with the more modest color (gray can be death for interesting lines), all the shapes and lines still pop out, unmistakably and unforgettably. No seersucker-suit-wearing onlookers will be repelled by risqué details; instead, they'll be attracted like affluent flies to artisanal honey.

The FT-1's other reinvention couldn't be more different. The real-life Pebble Beach car was born from the most old-school, conventional design process around: a pen-and-paper sketch, transferred to a small clay model, and only then digitized. (To be fair, after that, it was incorporated into Gran Turismo, and after playing the game Akio Toyoda reputedly green-lit the car.) It makes the full-race-kitted FT-1's digital reveal in Gran Turismo as a Vision GT Concept subtly incongruous.

Not to say the full-race version itself looks incongruous at all. It is completely believable, looking for all the world like a Super GT car in digital form. The flares, the scoops, the vents, and the splitters all look phenomenal. All this, and it's wearing the same graphite paint as the bourgeois version sitting pretty in Monterey.

You can see the FT-1 at Pebble Beach now, but you'll have to wait until next month to download the FT-1 Vision GT to your Playstation.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Road & Track participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.